House for a Painter

This former Victorian warehouse in South London had been home to an artist and his wife for several years, but when their first child came along the couple knew it was time to turn it into a proper living space. They called on London architect Dingle Price (now Pricegore) to create a comfortable living and working space.

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House for a Painter studio

The solution involved the use of an existing mezzanine to divide the home in half. On one side, a two-story home. On the other, a bright and open double-height studio.

House for a Painter hallway

Price’s concept was to more or less insert a home into the existing building by dividing the space in half. Since the mezzanine provided a natural separation of the vertical space, that side of the warehouse was naturally to become the living area.

House for a Painter bedroom

The two halves aren’t completely separate, however. Small windows in the walls of the two upstairs bedrooms and two large doors on the ground floor allow the family an opportunity to connect with both sides of the home.

Looking from the house into the studio gives the feeling of looking over a private courtyard. The feeling is emphasized by the huge landscape paintings in the artist’s studio.

House for a Painter kitchen

The internal landscape of the building offers a unique opportunity for the family to combine their personal and work spaces without forcing the two to intermingle. If they desire, the family can completely close off the studio half of the building by shutting the connecting doors and windows.

Sophisticated pine wood floors – some painted, some left natural – brilliantly offset the bright white walls and ceilings. Skylights allow ample natural light to flow in to both the house and the studio, highlighting the unusual space and its colorful contents.

House for a Painter bathroom

“A two bedroom house installed inside the shell of a Victorian warehouse to provide accommodation for an artist’s family. The rest of the warehouse remains as the artist’s studio which, overlooked and animated by the facade of the house, attains the character of a small piazza or garden.”

“In the future, the artist is expected to move to a separate studio building, allowing the double height volume to be used as a living room, with the current living space becoming a more generous kitchen and dining room.”